Tobey was most influenced by his travels. For most of his
life he moved from city to city seeing different styles of art around the
world. He took a particular interest in Eastern art and calligraphy which
greatly influenced, in particular, his ‘white writing’ pieces, but also his
whole abstract expressionism period, placing detailed patterns similar to
calligraphy over his abstract expressionist paintings.
You can see from his paintings that there is a similar style
to the other abstract expressionists as they all influenced each other through
this movement, creating art in the same style, yet portraying different
messages through individual work. The key aspect of abstract expressionism, and
in particular in Tobey’s work, is colour. There is no need for detailed
outlines as the colour and shape use gives the viewer enough of the picture for
the pieces to be abstract yet understood at the same time.
This has influenced me by seeing the emotion in a subject
and using this emotional response to draw out the importance of the scene such
as colours and patterns to create something that is not realistic, but an
exaggerated view.
